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Wednesday, 19 April 2017

11 Things I Learned in Malta about Writing - 7 There’s Always a Way Up the Hill

On a 2014 holiday in Malta I saw many things that could help me with my
writing. I will be sharing one each week. Here is point 7 I learned:

There’s always a way up the hill

Malta has no mountains but is a series of steep hills. The roads don’t all go
round the hills. The Maltese like to build their amazing churches on top of
hills, and they have been invaded so many times that they have fortified cities
on high places too. They have found ways to build roads to them, some very
creative.

Writing a novel can be like climbing a hill or a mountain. We don’t all have
the luxury of being able to sit for hours and write. When you hit a ‘hill’ in
your writing – don’t give up. Even if you have to lay a brick at a time, you can
make it.

Stephen King

Stephen King has a 500 Club. To become a member all you have to do is commit
to writing 500 words a day, every day. If you can’t manage even that, remember
the old adage: writers write.

You’re not writing essays for school or reports for work, under duress. You
are writing because it’s something you have to do, for yourself. Don’t let life
get in the way. If you write only 200 words every day, after a year you will
have 73,000 words, which is a novel.

You can find ways to jot things down at odd moments, and you can be thinking
of what to write while you’re doing other things: riding the bus, washing
dishes, waiting in a queue. When I was working I would work out the next scene
or dialogue in my head, and write it when I got home.

All writers used to be urged to carry a notebook at all times. Today, we all
carry our mobile phone at all times. All modern phones have apps for taking
notes. Go one better and use an app which links with your phone and your
computer (I use Evernote), so you can write
on your phone and then open it on your computer and just copy and paste into
your novel.

Ann Marie Thomas is the author of three medieval history books, a
surprisingly cheerful poetry collection about her 2010 stroke, and the science
fiction series Flight of the Kestrel. Book one, Intruders, is out now.
Follow her at http://eepurl.com/bbOsyz